In the past few days I have been accused of holding cynical/pessimistic views regarding Sansa's future by more than one person so I decided to make a separate post to explain my point better:
Let me start by reiterating that I never said Sansa will be unhappy in the end, what I tried to say was that she, like everyone else, may find her happiness conditioned by the world around her, which, as we all know, is a very constraining and unfair world and that isn't likely to change much for the better in the near future. With that in mind, I also think a lot of people conflate GRRM's idea of not giving in to despair with the christian idea of withstanding suffering until you're rewarded with perfect happiness in the future ("good things come to those who wait"), which makes them think that because their favorite character is suffering so much now, that means they should be rewarded a disney fairy tale ending where everything works out for them. But looking at GRRM'S original quote and at how ASoIaF is written overall is clear to see that that's not what the "not give in to despair" idea was about.
If you pay attention to the happy moments from the series you'll notice that all of them coexist with something bad or inconvenient. Catelyn and Ned had a very happy and fruitful union, in a time of relative peace. But their relationship coexisted with Ned's traumas from the war + Jon as the physical reminder that our amazing husband Ned had been unfaithful to Cat. We readers know he didn't cheat but Cat died thinking that he did, which means their happy marriage was based on Cat being forgiving of Ned publicly disrespecting her by having the product of his affair grow up in their house. She had to do that because despite all the good things in her life, she was still bound by the patriarchal rules of her world. If we go back and look at another peaceful and prosperous time period like the reign of Jaehaerys we see that it coexisted with tragedies like disease and death, plus Jaehaerys himself being a very flawed man who occasionally hurt his family. I could go on with more examples but I guess that's enough to understand my point that even the most peaceful and happiest moments are never completely free of sorrow.
Now back to Sansa. Everyone can agree that she is in a very bad situation right now: she thinks her entire family is dead, she lost her home, she is framed for kingslaying, she is sexually harassed on a daily basis by her guardian, the list of horrors just goes on and on. This girl has been going through it for years now. And YET, if you read her most recent chapters in the Vale, you can see her trying to lead a somewhat normal life as a teenage girl. She is making friends, she is attending parties, she is gossiping, she is running around and laughing. THAT'S the true idea of not giving into despair. She doesn't have many reasons to enjoy life but she still tries all the same, still tries to find some semblance of normalcy even in her very dire situation.
When I say that Sansa probably won't have a disney fairy tale ending, I don't mean that she won't find happiness (she is very good at protecting her own peace even in the most hostile environments). What I mean is, based on precedent, on how GRRM writes the good moments in this series, that her happiness may have a tinge of bittersweetness. That means that she may not get everything she wants, just like every other character won't get it either. But that's okay. That's life. And that's ASOIAF. It was never about waiting for things to be perfect, it's about trying to find the positive and keep fighting even when everything else is going badly. I think Sansa is already the perfect embodiment of not giving in to despair, because she's come to understand that there is evil in the world but she still tries to find joy in life.
Furthermore, I think we need to do away with "deserve" whenever we speculate about the future of these characters. Because this is a story built on tragedies. Indeed, Sansa did not deserve to go through everything she did in her early teens. But neither did Lyanna deserve to die in childbirth at 16 while trying to escape an arranged marriage to an awful man. Nor did Elia deserve to watch her children get brutally murdered before she was violated and murdered too. Nor did Catelyn deserve to lose everyone she loved just for trying to protect her family. None of these characters deserved what happened to them. But it happened all the same. If suffering should be a requirement for a happy ending ("happy endings are just stories that haven't finished yet") then these people should've been ruling the world. Is it pessimistic to admit that tragedy is an unfortunate part of life? Is it pessimistic to say that the people who remain and manage to find peace in life are still affected by the bad things in their world? No. That is just being real. True cynicism/pessimism is giving up, which is precisely what Sansa isn't doing.
